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MEMORANDUM
RE:
First Amendment rights of students to promote and participate in the Day of
Dialogue
On Friday, April 28, 2017, students around the United States will participate in the Day of
Dialogue - a student-organized, student-led event where students will tell their fellow classmates
about God’s love for them and His perfect plan for human sexuality. Students have a
constitutional right to participate in and promote the Day of Dialogue.
Unfortunately, schools all too often celebrate so-called “diversity” by silencing students with
“unpopular” viewpoints on homosexual behavior, while actively promoting the competing view.
This “one-way diversity,” as one federal court described it, see Hansen v. Ann Arbor Public Schools, 293
F. Supp. 2d 780, 783 (E.D. Mich. 2003), typically amounts to viewpoint discrimination in violation
of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. See, e.g., Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 107
(finding impermissible viewpoint discrimination where school district excluded Christian club from
after school forum on basis of its religious nature).
In light of the hostility students often face when trying to engage in the type of religious
expression contemplated by the Day of Dialogue, we are providing the memo below to clarify public
school students’ First Amendment rights to participate in and promote the Day of Dialogue, and to
assist school districts and school officials in avoiding needless litigation.
A.
RELIGIOUS SPEECH IS PROTECTED BY THE FIRST AMENDMENT.
It is a fundamental principle of constitutional law that government bodies—including public
schools—may not suppress or exclude the speech of private parties—including public school
students—just because the speech is religious or contains a religious perspective. Good News Club,
supra; Lamb’s Chapel v. Ctr. Moriches Union Free Sch. Dist., 508 U.S. 384 (1993); Widmar v. Vincent, 454
U.S. 263 (1981). This principle cannot be denied without undermining the essential First
Amendment guarantees of free speech and religious freedom.
It is equally true that religious speech is protected by the First Amendment and may not be
singled out for discrimination. As the Supreme Court has stated:
Our precedent establishes that private religious speech, far from being a First
Amendment orphan, is as fully protected under the Free Speech Clause as secular
private expression . . . . Indeed, in Anglo-American history, at least, government
suppression of speech has so commonly been directed precisely at religious speech
that a free-speech clause without religion would be Hamlet without the prince.
Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753, 760 (1995).
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Importantly, the Supreme Court recently stated that public schools cannot restrict religious
speech simply because it may be perceived by some as “offensive” or “controversial.” Morse v.
Frederick, 127 S. Ct. 2618, 2629 (2007) (“Petitioners urge us to adopt the broader rule that Frederick’s
speech is proscribable because it is plainly ‘offensive’ as that term is used in Fraser. We think this
stretches Fraser too far; that case should not be read to encompass any speech that could fit under
some definition of ‘offensive.’ After all, much political and religious speech might be perceived as
offensive to some”) (emphasis added). As the Third Circuit Court of Appeals put it in summarizing
Supreme Court case law, “The Supreme Court has held time and again, both within and outside of
the school context, that the mere fact that someone might take offense at the content of speech is
not sufficient justification for prohibiting it.” Saxe v. State College Area Sch. Dist., 240 F.3d 200, 215
(3d Cir. 2001).
B.
STUDENTS DO NOT ABANDON THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF
FREE SPEECH WHEN THEY ATTEND PUBLIC SCHOOL.
“It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to
freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community Sch.
Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969). See also Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 487 (1967) (“The vigilant
protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American
schools”). The Supreme Court has squarely stated that a student’s free speech rights apply “when
[they are] in the cafeteria, or on the playing field, or on the campus during the authorized hours. . . .”
Tinker, 393 U.S. at 512-13.
C.
TINKER’S “MATERIAL AND SUBSTANTIAL DISRUPTION STANDARD”
The Supreme Court has held that student expressive activity cannot be impeded by a public
school unless the activity creates a material and substantial disruption to the school’s ability to fulfill
its educational goals. See Tinker, 393 U.S. at 509. Any attempt to restrict such speech is
unconstitutional where there has been “no finding and no showing that engaging [in the activity]
would ‘materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the
operation of the school.’” Id. (quoting Burnside v. Byars, 363 F.2d 744, 749 (5th Cir. 1966)).
Moreover, the Supreme Court has stated that the standard of “material and substantial
disruption” cannot be met merely by the possibility of disruption. In the Court’s words,
“undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to
freedom of expression.” Id. at 508.
In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do not
possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are
persons under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must
respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the State. In our system, students
may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the state chooses to communicate.
They may not be confined to the expressions of those sentiments that are officially approved.
Id. at 511. This fundamental constitutional principle is applicable both inside and outside the
classroom. As the Tinker Court noted, when a student “is in the cafeteria, or on the playing field, or
on the campus during the authorized hours, he may express his opinions[.]” Id. at 512-13. Day of
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Dialogue speech activities are designed to take place during noninstructional times and so should
not disrupt school activities in any way.
Schools may not single out clothing promoting the Day of Dialogue or other religious
messages for unfavorable treatment. Students may wear such clothing to school to the same extent
that other similar articles of dress are permitted. For example, if the school allows students to wear
t-shirts with messages on them, they cannot prevent a student from wearing a t-shirt with a message
supporting the Day of Dialogue. Additionally, the wearing of clothing or jewelry bearing a religious
message is considered student speech, which cannot be restricted unless it (1) substantially interferes
with the operation of the school, or (2) infringes on the rights of other students. A student may not
wear clothing with a religious message if the school requires students to conform to a dress code
that does not allow any messages to be displayed on clothing.
D.
THE SO-CALLED “SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE” CANNOT
JUSTIFY OFFICIAL SUPPRESSION OF THE DAY OF DIALOGUE EVENT.
Schools and school officials often mistakenly believe that allowing students to engage in
religious speech at school would violate the so-called “separation of church and state”—a doctrine
often cited in connection with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This very
argument has been reviewed and rejected by the United States Supreme Court. In Mergens, the
Supreme Court stated as a general proposition that students’ private religious expression within a
public school does not present any Establishment Clause problem:
[P]etitioners urge that, because the student religious meetings are held under school
aegis, and because the State’s compulsory attendance laws bring the students
together (and thereby provide a ready-made audience for student evangelists), an
objective observer in the position of a secondary school student will perceive official
school support for such religious meetings. . . . We disagree.
Bd. of Educ. of Westside Cmty. Schools v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226, 249-50 (1990) (emphasis added). The
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment merely “requires the state to be a neutral in its
relations with . . . religious believers and non-believers; it does not require the state to be their
adversary.” Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947). Likewise, “[s]tate power is no more to be
used so as to handicap religions, than it is to favor them.” Id. Therefore, the Establishment Clause
has no applicability to stop student speech related to the Day of Dialogue event.
The Supreme Court in Mergens explained that a policy of equal access for religious speech
conveys a message “of neutrality rather than endorsement; if a State refused to let religious groups
use facilities open to others, then it would demonstrate not neutrality but hostility toward religion.”
Mergens, 496 U.S. at 248. Accord Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 110-19 (student religious speech does
not violate the Establishment Clause).
As the Supreme Court has said, “there is a crucial difference between government speech
endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion,
which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect.” Santa Fe, 530 U.S. at 302 (quoting
Mergens, 496 U.S. at 250). Private student speech does not violate the Establishment Clause. Id.
Student Day of Dialogue speech is private student speech.
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E.
STUDENTS MAY DIRECTLY ADVERTISE THE DAY OF DIALOGUE EVENT
TO FELLOW STUDENTS.
Just as the Day of Dialogue event itself is protected, so also is student expression advertising
the event. The Tinker “material disruption” standard applies to all student oral expression and
literature distribution during non-instructional time, regardless of religious content. School officials
may not prohibit this expression out of fear that allowing religious speech will offend some
members of the community. As the Supreme Court said, “in our system, undifferentiated fear or
apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression.”
Tinker, 393 U.S. at 508. Where a student wishes to peacefully distribute free literature on school
grounds during non-instructional time, there simply is nothing which “might reasonably [lead]
school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school
activities….” Id. at 514. In fact, distribution of literature is inherently less disruptive than spoken
expression. United States v. Kokinda, 497 U.S. 720, 734 (1990). The Supreme Court reasoned that
“[o]ne need not ponder the contents of a leaflet or pamphlet in order mechanically to take it out of
someone’s hand, but one must listen, comprehend, decide and act in order to respond to a
solicitation.” Id.
Several courts have held that the distribution of religious literature by public school students
is protected speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. See Morgan v. Swanson, 659 F.3d
359, 396 (5th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (recognizing that students, regardless of grade level, have “the
First Amendment[] right … to express a religious viewpoint to another student without fear”); J.S.
ex rel. Smith v. Holly Area Schools, 749 F.Supp.2d 614, 623 (E.D. Mich. 2010) (issuing preliminary
injunction against “school district’s outright prohibition upon [elementary school student’s]
distribution of religious flyers to his classmates”); Wright v. Pulaski Cnty. Special Sch. Dist., 803 F.
Supp. 2d 980, 984 (E.D. Ark. 2011) (E.D. Ark. March, 25, 2011) (granting injunction ordering
school officials to “permit [an elementary school student] to distribute flyers for church-sponsored
events and activities”); Westfield High Sch. L.I.F.E. Club v. City of Westfield, 249 F. Supp.2d 98, 114 (D.
Mass. 2003) (“It is now textbook law” that students carry rights of expression, including the right to
distribute literature); Clark v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist., 806 F.Supp. 116, 119 (N.D. Tex. 1992) (“It is
well settled that written expression is pure speech. . . . It is equally true that the guarantee of free
speech encompasses the right to distribute written materials peacefully”); Baughman v. Freienmuth, 478
F.2d 1345, 1348 (4th Cir. 1973) (“The regulation complained of reaches the activity of
pamphleteering which has often been recognized by the Supreme Court as a form of
communication protected by the first amendment”); Slotterback v. Interboro Sch. Dist., 766 F. Supp.
280, 288 (E.D. Pa. 1991) (“It is axiomatic that written expression is pure speech,” and that “the
guarantee of freedom of speech that is enshrined in the first amendment encompasses the right to
distribute peacefully”). Thus, school officials may not prohibit the peaceful dissemination of
information by students about the Day of Dialogue event.
F.
IF THE SCHOOL ALLOWS STUDENTS AND STUDENT CLUBS TO
ADVERTISE EVENTS ON SCHOOL BULLETIN BOARDS, PA SYSTEMS, OR
OTHER MEANS, THEY MUST ALLOW STUDENTS TO ADVERTISE THE
DAY OF DIALOGUE IN THE SAME FASHION.
It is also well settled that the government may not discriminate against private religious
speech when private secular speech is permitted in the same time, place, and manner. Good News
Club, 533 U.S. at 111-12 (“[W]e reaffirm our holdings in Lamb’s Chapel and Rosenberger that speech
discussing otherwise permissible subjects cannot be excluded from a limited public forum on the
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ground that the subject is discussed from a religious viewpoint”); Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of
Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 828 (1995) (“In the realm of private speech or expression, government
regulation may not favor one speaker over another”). Again, this principle applies with equal force
to religious expression engaged in by students. See, e.g., Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 111-12; Riseman
v. Sch. Comm. of City of Quincy, 439 F.2d 148 (1st Cir. 1971) (striking down an absolute prohibition of
student literature distribution at school under First Amendment); Good News/Good Sports Club v. Sch.
Dist. of City of Ladue, 28 F.3d 1501, 1505-1507 (8th Cir. 1994) (ban on religious expression by student
club in junior high school is unconstitutional where student secular expression was allowed).
Any possible misperceptions that the school is “endorsing religion” can be addressed by the
school clarifying that the speech is not endorsed by the school, such as through disclaimers. Pinette,
515 U.S. at 769 (“If Ohio is concerned about misperceptions, nothing prevents it from requiring all
private displays in the Square to be identified as such”); id. at 776 (“the presence of a sign
disclaiming government sponsorship or endorsement on the Klan cross, would make the State’s role
clear to the community.”) (O’Connor, J.,concurring); id. at 784 (disclaimer cures confusion over
misperceptions of endorsement) (Souter, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Several
Circuits have adopted this position in the school context:
[I]t is far better to teach students about the first amendment, about the difference
between private and public action, about why we tolerate divergent views. The
school’s proper response is to educate the audience rather than squelch the speaker.
Schools may explain that they do not endorse speech by permitting it.
Hills v. Scottsdale Unified Sch. Dist., 329 F.3d 1044, 1055 (9th Cir. 2003) (quoting Hedges v. Wauconda
Cmty. Sch. Dist., 9 F.3d 1295, 1299-1300 (7th Cir. 1993)).
Thus, if the school generally allows students or student clubs to advertise events by hanging
posters on school walls or bulletin boards, having announcements read over the school’s PA system,
or using some other method, the school cannot prohibit student organizers of Day of Dialogue
events from advertising in the same way.
CONCLUSION
This annual event is an opportunity for school officials to exemplify constitutional conduct
by protecting the ability of Day of Dialogue participants to properly exercise their First Amendment
rights. If you think that your rights have been violated as a result of participating in Day of Dialogue,
please contact our Legal Intake Department so that we may review your situation and possibly assist
you.
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Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building legal ministry that advocates for the right
of people to freely live out their faith. We seek to resolve disputes through education of public
officials regarding the constitutional rights of our clients. When necessary, we litigate to secure these
rights. Alliance Defending Freedom has participated in many of the court decisions governing
students’ religious and free speech rights in public schools, including Good News Club v. Milford
Central School District, 533 U.S. 98 (2001) (recognizing that the First Amendment protects student
religious speech).
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